The Illumination

by Karen Tintori

  She needed to sleep. They’d done all they could for tonight. Tomorrow might bring answers.

  But it won’t bring Dana back, she thought with a stab of pain, as she slid into the passenger seat of D’Amato’s Accord.

  17

  Barnabas searched her bedroom first.

  He worked his way methodically through the oblong room, starting with the frosted-glass jewelry box on her dresser, then sweeping the pale beam of his flashlight into the narrow painted drawers of her antiqued wooden nightstand. But all he found there was a Star of David necklace and a half dozen other pieces of good jewelry, a miniflashlight, a leather-bound address book, and an opened roll of quarters tucked beneath a package of gummy bears. Grimacing, he flattened himself on the wood floor and flicked his flashlight on again to peer under her bed. Zip. Not even dust bunnies.

  The sudden peal of a door buzzer startled him so thoroughly that he jerked up, banging his forehead on the bed frame. He froze, clicking off the flashlight, his heart pounding.

  It’s only someone ringing her doorbell. Wait it out. They’ll go away.

  Barnabas wondered who was out there, then told himself it didn’t matter. Only the Light mattered. And it had to be either here or with her.

  So he waited, motionless, on the floor, in the dark. The buzzer rang a second time, then fell silent. He strained to listen, expecting the sounds of an elevator, but none came.

  Once he was certain five minutes had passed, Barnabas resumed his search, heading now for the tall dresser—avoiding the windows and using his flashlight sparingly, so that no one looking in could detect so much as a shadow flitting through the rooms.

  Then he turned his attention to the bedroom closet, the tiny medicine cabinet in the bathroom, the toilet tank. He searched her desk and beneath the sofa cushions, guided only by the pale light of the candle she’d left flickering in the tall red glass, then he checked the kitchen cupboards, and even the freezer and crisper drawers in her refrigerator.

  Frustration grated through him. She must have taken it with her. He’d wait. She’d come back eventually.

  The end of a matter is better than its beginning; likewise, patience is better than pride.

  The verse from Ecclesiastes ran through his mind like a mantra, calming him as he made his way through the dark apartment and sat himself down on the sofa to wait.

  Across the street, in a late-model green Ford, two government agents assigned to the National Security Unit were hunkered down, also waiting in the dark for Natalie Landau to return.

  She hadn’t answered the buzzer, but they knew what she looked like and what they needed to get from her.

  18

  “That was a good move, calling the FBI,” Natalie acknowledged, as D’Amato pulled away from the curb. “I almost feel like we accomplished something.”

  “It helps to have friends in high places.” His gaze was locked on the rearview mirror.

  “Speaking of which, I’ve decided to drive up to Albany tomorrow and see what the Ion Beam lab there can tell me about this pendant.”

  “Want some company?”

  She shook her head. “Thanks, but the truth is, I could use some time alone. There’ll be enough company tomorrow night during shivah. I just need to roll down the window, keep the radio turned off, and let the breeze clear my head so I can think.”

  He didn’t answer. He was still fixated on the rearview mirror, but his face had tightened and there were grim lines now around his mouth.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m pretty sure we’re being followed.”

  She twisted in her seat, trying to see behind them, but D’Amato’s voice stopped her in midturn.

  “Don’t do that. We don’t want them to know we’re onto them—yet. Get Tyrelle on the phone.”

  She punched the numbers he gave her, her heart racing. As she tried to hand her cell to him, he shook his head.

  “You talk. I’ll lose them.”

  Natalie held her breath, waiting for Tyrelle to pick up. After two rings a voice said hello. But it didn’t sound like honey-laced whiskey. It sounded like sandpaper. Sandpaper with a Middle Eastern accent, she thought, quickly checking the display to see if she’d called the right number. “Special Agent Tyrelle?” she asked uneasily.

  At that moment she was thrown against the center console as D’Amato took a sharp left and the Accord rocketed toward a red light. “I think there’s a second car on our butt,” D’Amato muttered. “Could be the ’06 Lincoln that was parked by the drugstore.”

  He punched the accelerator and they shot through the intersection like a missile, nearly colliding with the back end of a yellow Hummer.

  “If you’re looking for the FBI buffoon, you’re too late,” the scratchy voice taunted in her ear. “He’s as dead as you will be if you don’t do precisely as I tell you.”

  Oh, my God. “Who is this?” She could hear herself yelling into the phone over the dissonant chorus of blaring car horns assaulting them. “What did you do to Tyrelle?”

  D’Amato was going seventy. The streets whizzed past, a dizzying blur of neon and car lights as Natalie clung to the phone, trying to push down her terror.

  “Shit. There are two of them—where’s Tyrelle?” D’Amato narrowly missed the suddenly opened door of a taxi. “What’s happening?”

  “He says Tyrelle’s dead,” she whispered.

  “It’s true. Do I have your attention now?”

  Sucking in a breath, Natalie hit speakerphone so D’Amato could hear.

  “Don’t think you can outrun us. Pull over now and we might still resolve this without anyone else getting hurt.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Natalie braced her boots against the floor as, tires squealing, D’Amato whipped right, then left, weaving through traffic like Steve McQueen on amphetamines. She was overwhelmed with sudden rage. “You killed Tyrelle—did you kill my sister, too?”

  “Stop the car now and turn over the Eye or you and your foolhardy companion will wish you had died in traffic.”

  Natalie spun toward the back window and peered into the headlights of the dark sedan swiftly maneuvering to keep right behind them.

  We still might die—any second now, she thought, as D’Amato cursed, cutting the wheel sharply to the left to avoid T-boning a Pepsi truck.

  “You’re not getting this eye,” she shouted. “Not unless you tell me who killed my sister.”

  “And you’re not going to see morning unless you hand over the Eye. My associates are about to overtake you. Don’t make us angrier with you than we already are.”

  “Tell him to go fuck himself.” D’Amato sounded amazingly calm, though the tension that corded along his neck suggested otherwise.

  Then he lowered his voice to an urgent whisper. “Natalie, you need to call Tyrelle’s partner, tell him he’s down. Now.”

  But she couldn’t hang up, not yet. “Did you kill my sister?”

  She heard what sounded like a low chuckle. “I would not have been so foolish as to have killed her before I made her tell me what I wanted to know. But you should know this,” the man said with satisfaction. “I am at this moment holding a souvenir of your sister’s death. A lovely necklace—the Hand of Fatima. Do you know it?”

  Natalie went cold. He has Dana’s hamsa.

  D’Amato’s right hand shot out, grabbed the phone from her, and snapped it shut. In the next instant he was slamming on the brakes, then shooting around the Explorer he’d nearly rear-ended.

  “Why did you do that?” Natalie yelled. “I needed him to answer me!”

  “You need to call Sean Watson. Now.”

  “You need to stop shouting at me,” she shot back. “Try giving me his phone number.” She gripped the door as the Accord skidded around a corner on two squealing wheels.

  At that moment, a pedestrian wearing a reflective jogging suit stepped into the street.

  “Look out!” Natalie screamed. Her face was ashen in the glow of the console lights a
s D’Amato twisted the wheel and the car miraculously skimmed around the man, frozen in place.

  Breathing hard, D’Amato rattled off the phone number and Natalie punched buttons with icy fingers.

  “Yes?” The curt male voice left no doubt her call was interrupting something far more important.

  “Special Agent Watson?”

  “You’ve got him. Who—?”

  “Watson!” D’Amato yelled before she could answer. “It’s D’Amato. Luther’s down. Maybe dead. Someone’s got his phone. He and his pals are climbing up my butt—one’s a black sedan, and I couldn’t get a good look at the other one, but it’s big—probably an ’06 Lincoln, dark blue or black. You need to find Luther—”

  “Where the hell are you, D’Amato?” the FBI agent barked.

  “Grand and Humboldt, headed for the Long Island Expressway.” Suddenly, the Lincoln zoomed forward and around the back of their car, sideswiping the Accord’s back quarter panel. “Damn it!”

  The impact knocked the phone from Natalie’s hand.

  “It’s a Lincoln alright. The bastards just hit me,” D’Amato yelled.

  “Oh, my God,” Natalie gasped. “One of them’s got a gun.”

  “Get down!” D’Amato barked. “Now!”

  Unlocking her seatbelt, she slid to the floor and fumbled desperately in the darkness for her phone. Her heart was slamming so hard against her breastbone she thought her ribs would fracture.

  “Hang on,” D’Amato told her over the blare of more horns as he floored the pedal. “I’m going to lose them.”

  “That’s what you said before. Damn it. I can’t find the phone.” Natalie groped desperately across the floor, panic trembling through her fingers.

  “I think it slid under my feet. I might have disconnected . . .”

  She reached toward the pedals and cracked her head on the console just as the phone jangled, startling her as it lit up inches away.

  She scooped it from behind his left heel and huddled beneath the glove compartment, pressing it to her ear.

  “You are both dead.” The same Middle Eastern voice, a dark, menacing voice that scraped along her nape like the spines of a cactus. “We are taking aim now at your tires. You have thirty seconds to pull over and give us the Eye of Dawn.”

  19

  Hasan Sabouri crouched in the back of the Lincoln, sizzling with controlled fury. The Americans weren’t stopping. “Shoot them!”

  Khalil was at the wheel, his foot keeping the accelerator pedal near the floorboard. He had exchanged his daytime taxi for the Lincoln after collecting Hasan from the airport. His nephew Marwan rather literally occupied the shotgun seat—his window down, his Glock pointed at the Accord’s right rear tire.

  “Now, Marwan!” Hasan urged.

  The boy fired off a round, but missed the tire, his bullet ricocheting off the right rear bumper instead.

  “Keep firing!” Hasan ordered, but it was too late. Accompanied by the blare of angry horns, the Accord sliced across two lanes straight into oncoming traffic and leaped onto the curb.

  “What’s wrong with you, Marwan?” Hasan bellowed, slamming his fist against the young man’s headrest. “Did they teach you nothing in the camps? Go after them, Khalil.”

  Khalil obeyed, plunging across the oncoming traffic without hesitation. He checked the rearview mirror and saw that Ra’if, at the wheel of the black Cadillac, was following his lead. He’d accidentally caught a glimpse of Hasan’s face in the rearview mirror and trembled, not at the cars and trucks scattering before their wayward vehicles, but at the rage sparking from the Iranian’s strange marble-blue eyes.

  Was Hasan cursing him and his nephew and all their descendants—should the boy live long enough, insha’allah? Marwan had only hesitated an instant, no doubt trying to get off the best shot he could, not from any lack of resolve. He was as committed to the reestablishment of the khalifate as Hasan himself was, of that he had no doubts. The khalifs were the true leaders of Islam. Hadn’t the boy been trained from infancy just for this service?

  Like other women committed to their cause, Khalil’s own sister, Lama, had been flown to the city of Detroit in her seventh month of pregnancy to wait out her son’s birth, ensuring that her boy would be born an American citizen, with all their inherent rights and privileges.

  Including the right to an American passport.

  But little Marwan had not remained long in the predominantly Arab suburb of Dearborn. He was not meant to grow up in the land of the infidels alongside other children of his faith. When he was but two months old, his mother had taken him home to Bahrain. And when he was four years old, she’d proudly kissed him good-bye and sent him to the camps to be trained as a warrior for Islam.

  Tonight was his first opportunity to prove himself, Khalil knew, and it was of such importance, with Hasan Sabouri himself directing him, who could blame the boy for a slight case of nerves?

  “Give me the gun,” Hasan commanded from the backseat, his eyes fixed intently on the Accord now roaring off the curb. He yelled into his cell phone, ordering Amir, the marksman in the Cadillac with Ra’if, to take out the tires, then yanked away the Glock Marwan was handing him.

  As Khalil gave chase to the Americans, Hasan angled the powerful weapon out the window and squeezed off two shots, but in the next instant a deafening explosion rocked the Lincoln, enveloping it in a reeking mass of smoke and shredded rubber. Amir’s bullet had gone wild, striking their Lincoln’s rear tire, turning it into seared shreds and sending the Lincoln spinning out of control.

  It slammed into an oncoming Lexus, reeled sideways, and swiped against the Cadillac Ra’if was vainly trying to steer out of its path.

  His efforts proved futile. As Ra’if corrected his steering to recover from the collision, he swung instead into the path of a Dodge Caravan, which hit him broadside, rolling his vehicle. He never saw the Explorer barreling toward him. It crushed the Cadillac like an empty soda can, killing its occupants instantly.

  Khalil fared only slightly better in the fishtailing Lincoln. He was alive but badly burned by the gunpowder used to activate the airbag. Dimly he could hear Marwan groaning from the seat beside him, and then Hasan banging the bashed-in rear door, struggling to escape the car and screaming that they’d let the Eye of Dawn get away.

  Natalie fought for breath as she crawled back onto her seat and watched the carnage behind them recede.

  “Well, I . . . guess you lost them,” she said shakily, refastening her seatbelt. “I doubt if anyone in that Cadillac could have survived.”

  “Better them than us.” D’Amato had now blended into traffic, decelerating to keep pace with the law-abiding drivers around him. “What was that business about a souvenir?”

  She explained quickly about the hamsa, then suddenly broke off. “He has to be an Arab, D’Amato. I just realized he called Dana’s necklace by its Muslim name, ‘the Hand of Fatima.’ ”

  “Right. Named for Muhammad’s daughter. I’ve seen those little hand-shaped necklaces all over the Middle East.”

  “Yes, to a Jew, it’s a hamsa. That’s Hebrew for five, like the digits on a hand,” Natalie explained. “Some people call it the Hand of Miriam, after the sister of Moses and Aaron.”

  “Same symbol, different names.”

  “But still a form of protection against the evil eye.” Natalie’s tone was quiet now. “But the pendant,” she said slowly. “He called that something, too—when he warned me that they were going to shoot. He called it ‘the Eye of Dawn.’ At least that’s what it sounded like. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “Not a thing,” he grunted. “But I guess it’s a start.” He was still checking all the mirrors, his eyes shifting constantly. “You know this means there’s no going back to your apartment. Whoever these guys are, I’m sure they’re not working alone. And chances are they followed us to the coffee shop from your place. Some of them went after Luther, in case you’d handed off the pendant to him, and the rest . . . well,
you know the rest.”

  Natalie wondered how he could sound so calm, so logical. Her heart was still racing, and she felt as though she’d just run straight into an electrified fence.

  “Shouldn’t we talk to the police? Luther’s dead—and if the men who chased us had been better marksmen—or you less of a kamikaze driver—we’d be, too.”

  “Like I told Luther tonight, it’s your call. If you want to stick around and answer questions for a few hours, file a police report, and look at mug shots, say the word. Or we could go back and officially involve the bureau.”

  “No, they’ll want the pendant, too, and I’m not handing it over to anyone. It’s all I have left of Dana.” Her voice cracked. “If she died because of this, I need to know why. What about this is worth her life—and Luther’s? Not to mention mine and yours. At the very least, I need to find out what I’ve got here. Eye of Dawn. I don’t know what that means, but I doubt the police can figure that out any quicker than I can.”

  D’Amato started to speak, but she interrupted him. “I know someone who can help me identify this—my mentor, Dr. Ashton. I need to go see him. He’s currently a visiting professor at the British School of Rome, and he’s the world’s foremost expert on ancient glyptic art. He can probably not only date the jewels on the pendant but pin down which mine in the Middle East produced the lapis lazuli.”

  “They have the facilities to test it at this school in Rome?”

  “He wouldn’t be able to carry on his research there if they didn’t. Can you take me to the airport?” she asked. “I need to get on the next flight to Rome.”

  D’Amato glanced over at her. “It’s too dangerous to go back to your apartment for your passport—”

  “I don’t need to—it’s in my bag. Probably the first time in my life procrastination’s worked in my favor,” she muttered. “Just drop me off at JFK.”